This invention relates to a machine for forming cylindrical bales of crop material such as hay or the like, and more particularly to an improved machine of the above general type wherein the bale is formed off the ground between upper and lower conveyors and discharged rearwardly after the bale is formed
Machines of the above general type have been known for a long period of time, and numerous, now expired patents disclose cylindrical balers having crop pickups which deliver the crop rearwardly between a pair of compressor rolls to a baling zone between a pair of belt-type conveyors moving around transverse rollers, the bale being supported above the ground on the lower conveyor while the upper conveyor envelops at least a part of the upper portion of the bale to rotate the bale and roll the mat of crop material moving between the compressor rolls into an increassingly larger bale. After the bale reaches a predetermined size, means are provided for rearwardly discharging the bale onto the ground. The early commercial machines embodying the above bale-forming mechanism produced relatively small bales that could be manually lifted, but with the decreasing availability of farm labor and the increasing availability of material-handling machines, later commercial machines have provision for the formation of much larger bales that can only be handled by mechanically powered material-handling equipment. Several machines of the latter type are now commercially available, U.S. Pat. No. 3,722,197 illustrating one type of the larger baling machines now commercially available.